Apologies for starting my first post on a sour note, but I’ve been using Linux for over 20 years now and I’ve never–ever–come across a distro that requires signing a End User License Agreement (EULA) requiring me–and every other user–to agree to ‘binding arbitration’ in the case of any legal disagreements before I can install it. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together is going to hesitate here–as they should. What happened to GNU? In short: WTF?
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for reading the license agreement in full and taking the time to give us feedback. This EULA agreement is a bit of historical artifact from nearly 10 years ago when Endless was a Silicon Valley VC-funded startup, building our own hardware devices. We had some very… protective… lawyers who were ensuring maximum investor value etc etc and the EULA for the hardware devices was frankly ridiculous in how restrictive and prescriptive it was, but in support of avoiding misuse of the devices and our services, managing liability arising from that, etc.
Shortly after I joined in 2016 we changed tack towards being a software company, offering the OS for download for the first time, and we had to edit the agreement to find a reasonable balance between the intentions of that original version (and managing our relationship with our existing/ongoing hardware customers) and something lighter that would work with software-only (whether downloaded or via OEM partners such as Asus and Acer) users. We did make sure that all of the OSS licenses prevailed over the license agreement, and we also removed the ludicrous idea that you could have your OS license revoked if we decided we didn’t like the way you were using it / our servers / etc.
As a nonprofit since 2020 we’ve essentially not changed that agreement a lot because we’ve been focused on other stuff - such as actually releasing the remainder of the OS, our development releases, our build tools etc as open source, and establishing new programs in the US such as Endless Key. We’ve not really seen the need to go and spend a bunch of money on redoing the agreement - we’ve got limited time and budget, and lawyers are expensive.
Should we change it now? I don’t really have as strong feelings about it as you seem to - I know that binding arbitration agreements justifiably have a “bad rap” in employment law, particularly with large employers, because they are said to be embedding an inequality that makes it harder for the employee to enforce employment law against the employer. This is at odds with an employment relationship which is intended to be a mutually agreed exchange of work/services for money - particularly when you consider a large employer which should have better capacity/resources to comply with the law and own its internal compliance and any mistakes.
In this case, we’re a small nonprofit, giving an OS away for free, and operating associated services behind it, and expecting nothing in return. We’re not in control of who uses it, nor what they use it for, and like all FOSS we disclaim liability to the extent we’re able to in law. This isn’t a particularly comparable situation to the employment example - as you can see there is very little mutuality in this scenario. Nothing has changed hands from the users back to us. We hope the OS is useful, but we don’t want to get in any trouble if it’s not.
Hypothetically, if we deleted this clause, how would it help? What situation would you expect a user to litigate against Endless OS Foundation to enforce our license agreement against us? And is it appropriate for us to enable such litigation rather than let people just make their own choice as to whether use the OS or not, without inviting further liability? As a nonprofit we have an obligation towards the public to ensure our resources are used to support our social welfare purpose.
Thanks,
Rob
(CEO)
Hi, Rob:
Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns. My surprise came from the fact the EULAs like that usually come from for profit software companies like Microsoft and not the Linux community, which prides itself on being open source, using the GNU model of software propagation. I’m actually surprised that I appear to be the only one in the forum mentioning it. To be clear, I’m not GNU ‘true believer,’ but I know a few who would be shocked by a binding arbitration EULA from a Linux company.
Anyway, thanks again for addressing the issue,
Mike
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